


Following in his Footsteps

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tvrealm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 22:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/728454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hates their new house.  He hates the dismantled cars in the weedy lot, and he hates the green paint peeling off the walls in his room.  He hates the dilapidated plaid sofa and the row of empty beer bottles already lined up on the scuffed coffee table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Following in his Footsteps

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-series. Written for LJ's tvrealm community for the challenge "headcanon accepted"
> 
> * * *

The front porch is rickety, the stairs creaking under his slight weight. He sits on the bottom step and kicks at the dusty ground with his dirty sneakers. 

He hates their new house. He hates the dismantled cars in the weedy lot, and he hates the green paint peeling off the walls in his room. He hates the dilapidated plaid sofa and the row of empty beer bottles already lined up on the scuffed coffee table. He hasn't even been to his new school yet but he knows he's going to hate that, too. His new school ain't gonna have Miss Tomlinson to help him with his math, and it sure as heck ain't gonna have no after-school art class and no Mr. Crandall telling him he's got "potential". Daryl ain't sure what that is, but it sounds like something he'd like to have.

The screen door squeals behind him, then the sound of his brother's work boots thumping down the stairs.

"You poutin' out here like a pussy?"

Daryl scowls down at the ground, watches a beetle trundle across the dirt until one of his brother's boots nudges him in the leg. 

"I'm talkin' to you, little brother."

Daryl shifts away, shoots his brother his best dirty look. "Ain't no pussy."

"That's right, you ain't," Merle says, flopping down beside him. Merle's been lugging stuff from the Goodwill all day, long after the old man stopped helping and started working on his two-four, and his brother smells like sweat and stale beer and cigarettes. It's a good smell. Not as good as the way the woods smell after a rain, and not as good as the scent of the oil paints in Mr. Crandall's class, but it's still a good smell, a comforting smell. 

He wishes he could explain everything to Merle – how much he misses Jake and Tommy and the other kids from the neighbourhood, and how smearing stripes of red and yellow on the canvas in Mr. Crandall's class makes him feel lighter inside somehow. And about how sometimes he still sees their ma out of the corner of his eye, watching him with one hand on her hip and a cigarette dangling from her fingers, and how when he turns real quick to look at her she's never there. He wishes he could explain that his greatest fear is that once they're settled into this new house out in the sticks, ma will stop coming around. But all he can do is shrug, stare at the ground and say, "I hate this place."

"Hell, it ain't so bad," Merle says. "You'll get used to it."

Daryl doubts that, but he knows better than to argue with his brother. 

"Tell you what," Merle says. "Once we get the rest of this shit moved in, I'll take ya out and let ya try my new crossbow. What'd'ya think?"

Daryl raises his eyes. All he's heard since Merle got the Horton is _keep your hands off it_ and _you ain't big enough_ – the thought of actually using it is almost enough to start him drooling. "You mean it?"

One of Merle's big hands clamps down on his shoulder as he rises, but he doesn't wince, not even a little.

"Only if you stop actin' like a little bitch," Merle says.

"Ain't no bitch, either."

"All right, then," Merle says, turning his back and heading to the old man's pick-up, piled high with mismatched furniture. "Get up off your ass and start helpin' me haul this shit inside."

Daryl kicks one last time at the dirt before getting up and following in his brother's footsteps.


End file.
